Today, I am so excited to finally share our sleep training tips with you mommies! Over the last two years, and two kids later, I’d like to think we have something to share with other parents struggling to figure out this sleep thing! Lack of sleep can make us less effective parents, in addition to less effective employees, business owners, family members, friends, etc. I hope these tips will give you some insight on things you may not have been doing before.

1. Put Baby Down for Sleep While He or She is Still Awake

This is a big one for us! We didn’t do that with baby number 1, and he would always fall asleep on one of us. If he wasn’t completely lost in sleep, he would jump up and start crying, as soon as his face touched the crib sheets! Baby number 2 can fall asleep all by herself.

2. (If Tip #1 was successful, follow this step) Transition Baby to Crib as soon as Possible!

It’s important to get your baby familiar with the feeling of being in his or her crib. The sooner you do this the easier it will be to reclaim your room. It was very hard for me to let go of my babies, so what I did was place their crib in our room at first. I would put my son to sleep in his crib instead of the bassinet and he was only two steps away, near my bed. When the 6-month mark arrived, we were all ready for the transition. For the 2nd child, it happened much sooner, because being in our room actually kept her up. She jumped up at the slightest movement!

3. Create a Sleep Friendly Environment

Our current perfect environment consists of nature sounds and a dark room. Toys are kept in the playroom, except for the occasional small toy that may bring comfort to a child. Experiment with what works best for your babies. Some babies like ‘everyday’ sounds like the vacuum or the washing machine, other babies like the white noise, and still other babies like complete silence. What you choose is sometimes a matter of trial and error.

4. Be Patient & Monitor!

Sometimes the difference between a successful sleep transition and a baby in your room until they’re in middle school (just a little hyperbole there, hehe) is just a little patience. I cannot tell you how many nights I would be ready to run into the nursery and rescue a baby from the abyss of their crib, at the slightest whimper. My husband would have to talk me out of it, and, when a calmer and clearer head prevailed I would look up and my baby was asleep! Now, I’ll leave it up to you to use good sense and determine whether your baby has a physical need that has to be met. My point here, is to have a healthy balance between nurturing your baby and allowing your baby to mature developmentally. The last thing you want to do is get in the way of your baby’s development, right? One of the things that helps me stay calm after I’ve put my baby down to sleep is the use of my baby monitor!

I wanted to share our current monitor, as I have been loving it! It’s called the Summer Infant BABYPIXEL 5.0” touchscreen color video monitor. I cannot say enough great things about this monitor! It’s been a life saver! Here are some of the things I love about it:

It has a 360Tilt™ Camera Steering and is touchscreen, so I can control and steer the camera to better view the baby!

It has sounds activated lights that will light up when the camera picks up a sound in the baby’s room. The LED light bar also indicates when the battery is low on my monitor.

The monitor also displays the room’s current temperature and the time. This is probably my favorite feature!

Something else I love to use is the Moonlite™ Night Vision Boost! When you press this button it illuminates a small LED light on the camera to help you better view your baby. There is also an option to adjust the brightness of this light.

The SleepZone™ feature sets a virtual boudary box around the baby. You can select the boundaries, and if your baby leaves this boundary the monitor will alert you! How cool is that?!
Finally, there’s the ‘talkback’ feature that allows me to talk to my baby. Sometimes, your baby just needs to know you aren’t far away to calm down and rest peacefully. I can sing to my baby girl to keep her from crying. It really is such a sweet feature.

The BABYPIXEL™ has so many other wonderful features not mentioned in this post. I would recommend it to any new mommy. It’s a great baby shower gift as well! It gives me peace of mind and has made my sleep training efforts more seamless!

Summer Infant is currently giving One of these monitors away! CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFO!

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Until Next Time,

Ker-Leen

Thank you to Summer Infant for kindly sponsoring this post. All opinions are 100% honest & completely my own.

4 TIPS TO SLEEP TRAIN YOUR BABY FAST!